Ranges

About 200,000 select Frigidaire and Kenmore Elite smooth-top electric ranges are being recalled because the heating elements are not properly controlled by the switches and settings, causing ranges to turn on spontaneously, fail to turn off and fail to heat to the specified temperature. The company has received 126 reports of incidents, including four reports of minor burns and two reports of minor property damage. The ranges were sold by national chains including Sears and independent stores around the country from June 2001 to August 2009.

Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy is being portrayed by some as a man of principle, an iconoclast who should be admired for his willingness to stand up to the federal government. But in fact he's a petty scofflaw who seems to think that he has the right to pick and choose which rules must be obeyed. Bundy is the cattleman who grazes his herd on federal land operated by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, but unlike more than 15,000 other ranchers, he refuses to pay the associated grazing fees.

Can a New Yorker help an Angelo navigate the maze of local home service providers? Elizabeth Franklin thinks so, having taken on the challenge with her latest Franklin Report, a Zagat-like guide for home improvement services. Two years ago, the former investment banker launched her first guide for New York after having experienced firsthand the difficulty of finding the right people to renovate her family's Manhattan residence. Last year, Franklin and her staff did another for Chicago.

Re "BLM relents after standoff," April 13 Relenting to the demands of the armed supporters of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who has his cattle graze on public land but refuses to pay the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, sends a dangerous message: that disputes with the federal government are best resolved with threats of violence. This outcome will only inspire more radicals to take arms against the U.S. government. This is a serious setback for civil discourse and undermines the rule of law that all citizens need for safety and stability.

Most of the signs for visitors to the Medicine Bow National Forest in southeast Wyoming are like those greeting people at most forests, with the requisite rules about camping, fires and vehicle use. But on a section of Medicine Bow between Cheyenne and Laramie, visitors see an additional sign -- warning them not to pick up metal objects that could be unexploded military ordnance. From 1879 until 1961, when the U.S.

The American military, the third-largest landowner in the United States, is looking for a few more good acres--and a few less bases. It is no simple contradiction. As they prepare to close or scale back some 70 military bases, Pentagon officials also say more open land is needed for realistic training with weapons that travel faster and see farther. The net result? Little change in the number of military acres, but a subtle shift away from population centers to large military reservations tucked away from the rest of America.

The L.A. County Fair runs through Oct. 3 at the Fairplex, 1101 W. McKinley Ave., Pomona. Admission ranges from $6 to $17 depending on your age and the day of the week. Parking ranges from $10 (general) to $25 (valet). Information: (909) 865-4298 or (909) 623-3111, http://www.lacountyfair.com .

Gap stock price: An article in Sunday's Image section on the Gap's new head of design, Patrick Robinson, said that Gap Inc.'s stock price was down more than 50% last week, to $18.17. In fact, that 50% drop in the price ranges from early 2000 to Feb. 5, 2008.

Your article, "The High Cost of Housing" (Oct. 1), properly identified the high cost of land as the culprit. That answer, however, merely raises another question: Why does land cost so much here? Land prices reflect supply and demand. Limits on the supply side of the relationship distinguish Southern California from other areas and explain much of the differential. Because of traffic congestion, commuting ranges--the distances that one can travel in a given time during rush hours--rank among the lowest anywhere.

I am saddened when I hear so many people say they don't like poetry, but I understand ("A Poet's Paradise, for Better or for Verse," by Rick Wartzman, From First and Spring, Aug. 27). If the public were exposed to less complicated poems, many people might develop an appreciation for truly great poetry. I find it strange that music ranges from opera to country and that prose ranges from great literature to comics, but most poetry--if it is to rate publication--must be so "deep" that it is opaque to the average person.

Bighorn sheep are skilled mountain climbers. But one group recently made it over the Sierra Nevada crest in record time. As part of an ongoing effort to return endangered Sierra Nevada bighorns to more of their historical range, state and federal wildlife workers captured 14 of the animals in the Inyo National Forest and transported them by helicopter to the Big Arroyo area of Sequoia National Park on the range's west side. The four rams and 10 ewes, all but one of which was pregnant, were moved in late March to a part of the Sierra that bighorns have not occupied for more than a century.

LAS VEGAS - Wielding signs and slogans, several hundred demonstrators rallied Monday to support beleaguered cattle rancher Cliven Bundy and his family in a turf battle against the federal government. They had responded to an alert promising a new skirmish: “Range War begins at the Bundy ranch at 9:30 a.m. We're going to get the job done!” Bundy is battling with federal officials over his cattle's grazing on 150 square miles of scrub desert overseen by the Bureau of Land Management.

LAS VEGAS - Wielding signs and slogans, several hundred demonstrators rallied Monday to support beleaguered Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy after authorities began to seize his cattle from federal land. Protesters had responded to an alert that promised: "Range war begins at the Bundy ranch at 9:30 a.m. We're going to get the job done!" Federal officials say Bundy is illegally running cattle in the 600,000-acre Gold Butte area, habitat of the federally protected desert tortoise.

Candidates hoping to succeed Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky addressed a range of chronic challenges facing the county board Thursday evening and offered different prescriptions for reforming the governing panel. Meeting in their third debate, the candidates agreed that the county needs to build more supportive housing for the homeless to reduce the number of people living on the street. They also voiced support for initiatives to break up bureaucratic "silos" separating agencies and making it harder to deliver healthcare to the needy and help for families in the troubled foster care system.

LAS VEGAS -- From the cab of his old pickup, Cliven Bundy watched the trucks congregate on the horizon near his ranch some 80 miles north of here. His ongoing range war with the federal government, Bundy said, has heated up yet again. Officials say Bundy is illegally running cattle in the 600,000-acre Gold Butte area, a habitat of the protected desert tortoise. Last year, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that if the 68-year-old veteran rancher did not remove his cattle, they could be seized by the Bureau of Land Management.

Disney's “Maleficent” may not be hitting the multiplex until May, but details about some of the merchandise (think: fashionable goods for the bad girl) are starting to trickle out. Among the notable stylish “Maleficent” merchandise set to drop in advance of the film's May 30 release: Stella McCartney kids' clothes, Italian-made scarves and a jewelry collaboration with prices as high as her Winged Wickedness' prosthetically enhanced cheekbones. Crow's Nest for "Maleficent" Daniel Belevitch, creative director of U.K.-based Crow's Nest, mined the movie's dark motifs - think feathers, fire, thorns, horns and dragons - to create a high-end, seven-piece jewelry collection that includes a dangerous-looking cuff that evokes the shape of Maleficent's horns rendered in black rhodium and set with a pear-shaped onyx ($5,720)

Regarding Charlene Stevens' statement about Blanche the Wonder Dog: Blanche is in fact a yellow Labrador retriever. The dog she refers to is not a golden Labrador retriever. It is simply a golden retriever, and while it is a long-haired dog, it is not always red in color. It ranges from blonde to red-gold. If she is going to make a statement, she should be correct in her facts. JANICE PORTER, Canoga Park

SEOUL - - North Korea test-launched two medium-range ballistic missiles early Wednesday in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, officials said. The South Korean military said the missiles were launched just after 2:30 a.m. and flew for a little more than 400 miles. The U.S. State Department said the two missiles flew "over North Korea's land mass and impacted in the Sea of Japan. " It appeared that North Korea did not issue maritime warnings about the launches, the department said.

Federal biologists clad in waders and armed with long-handled nets this week moved hundreds of red-legged frog eggs from a San Fernando Valley stream to carefully selected wetlands 10 miles away in the first attempt to expand the threatened species' range in Southern California. Five hundred eggs transported from the Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve to the Santa Monica Mountains are expected to hatch any day. When they do, they will reintroduce red-legged frog tadpoles to historic haunts that are free of predatory fish, snails and crayfish that could tear them apart.